Birthdays and Job

by emptywords 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Bonnie_Clyde
    Bonnie_Clyde

    "Highlights from the Book of Job" - Watchtower March 15, 2006 p. 13

    "Did Job's children observe birthdays? No, they did not. The original-language words for "day' and 'birthday' are different, each having its own meaning. (Genesis 40:20) At Job 1:4, the word 'day' is used, denoting an interval of time from sunrise to sunset. The seven sons of Job apparently held a seven-day family gathering once a year. As they made the circuit, each son was the host of the banquet held at his house on 'his own day.'"

    Special insight from the FDS.

    Love, Bonnie

  • Atlantis
    Atlantis
  • gymbob
    gymbob

    Lady Liberty~

    Good posts! Not doubting you or anything like that, but where are the scriptural references to the whole town being killed for Solomon's wife?

  • Xena
    Xena
    16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife. 17 And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) (NIV, 1 Kings 9:16-17)
  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Interesting Xena. I guess wedding gifts are "bad" then.

  • Xena
    Xena

    Only if you are a Canaanite.

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    The Hebrew phrase beyth 'ish yomô, "(in the) house of (each) man his day," doesn't necessarily (nor even likely) imply birthdays, because it corresponds to a very common distributive structure in Biblical Hebrew, where 'ish in particular stands for the individual item (= each one) -- not always a man btw. Cf. NRSV, "in one another's houses in turn". The possessive -ô (his, her, its) is an integral part of this structure and cannot be treated independently (as in the separate form yômô in 3:1).

    On this topic, the burden of proof rests on the WT and their arguments are weak to say the least. But from the perspective of Hebrew syntax I don't think Job 1:4 is a good counter-argument.

  • emptywords
    emptywords

    Thanks for the great posts, Lady excellent...the info from all these is more than I ever thought just on a birthday issue......

  • TheListener
    TheListener

    There are numerous threads on the board that clearly address the issue of Job and birthdays.

    Narkissos is correct (I'm sure he rests easy that I agree ).

    When you really research the subject by studying the Hebrew text and reading various Bible commentaries you see that there is weak or no evidence that this scripture points to birthdays.

    A few commentaries make the argument that birthdays are implied, but isn't that exactly what the WT does in so many cases (i.e. evidently, apparently, must be the case, etc etc).

    I slay the birthday argument this way:

    we celebrate anniversaries - we give anniversary gifts - who gets the gifts? God or the couple? In fact the longer a couple is married the more everyone discusses the couple and their ability to stay together and how proud of them everyone is. Hmmm. shouldn't all honor go to God?

    we celebrate births - we give baby showers with gifts - who gets the gifts? God or the couple/baby?

    Birthdays are not called out as bad in the Bible. From the above examples we see that we could celebrate birthdays by stating we are celebrating God's invention of the life giving process. We could give gifts to the individual because we are following the example set by the anniversary and baby shower routine.

  • Mrs Smith
    Mrs Smith

    It's just anotherway that the WBTS make the rank and file feel unworthy. We receive undersered kindness from Jah and we are not worthy enough to celebrate our birthday. We are not worthy enough to receive gifts from friends and family to celebrate being alive! What a lot of bs.

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